HouseBot

Hi Scott,

Do you have in mind some mechanism to allow users to share skins, themes (or at least screenshots to give other users idea), plugins, etc? This was a LONG standing request with Meedio that never got fullfilled. For example, I have my HAI Omni interface/plugin complete with installer and help files but I don't have an easy way to share it. Let me know your thoughts.

-- Dave

This is something I defiantly will do. My first priority was to just get the site and forums functional.

In the interim, I could create specific forums per plugin. Assigning the author as a moderator of the forum and they can just have a "sticky" post that has the plugin as an attachment.

Any thoughts?

Hi Scott,

I think creating a forum per plugin would be okay but it sounds like a lot of work for you. I can be patient and just wait until you have time to do it as you see fit.

-- Dave

That was a nice way of saying bump
I too would have something to show if people are interested. I know I would be interested in seeing some other SWRemote theme setups.

Richard:

Can you think of a good way to share themes? The main problem is that you'll get all kinds of errors when you try to load them since they are heavily dependent on local devices and properties.

I suspect the best thing for themes might be to have some sort of "gallery" and a place to discuss things. If a particular theme generates a lot of interest the developer might be able to provide images and/or guidance to allow others to incorporate the theme into their environment. What do you think?

I don't mess with skinning anymore since it only creates a mess in my theme. I tried it once just to see what would happen. Of course I never set the button position and button type in the 'Style' tab of the theme properties so probably it should work OK if I tried better. Since my theme is completely the same on all panels, I don't think anybode could add to that except for ideas and different (nicer) looking buttons. I really don't like backgrounds to be busy and colors need to have a nice contrast on all of my different output devices (plasma, tft touch, pda, beamer etc).

So I would just like to see what others have come up with and draw ideas from that and maybe even ask for their better looking buttons and images.

I also see another smaal problem when switching from Meedio HouseBot to just HouseBot. The theme xml file will have a wrong path to all buttons etc. This can easily be fixed using a text editor for the xml file, but really does need some warning for those who don't edit xml.

Creating a Skin or even doing a Configuration Export with a theme gets around the issue of having different paths on different machines. There is probably still more that can be done to make sharing of theme controls/skins easier, and I'm always open to ideas.

I had hoped that it might be possible to just 'apply' another skin to an existing Theme and it would magically transform and look wonderful. This would only stand a chance of happening if all skins contained similar sized controls and each had their "Style" setup properly. I think that was a pipe-dream and we should probably expect it will hardly ever happen. I'll probably even remove the "Style" tab and "Apply Skin" functionality in 3.0.

However, I'm open to any ideas for sharing skins/themes/configurations/etc via the web site.

In relation to my comment on changing the xml file for paths to the images, I wasn't really referring to theme skinning, but just to changing your Meedio HouseBot setup to a HouseBot setup.
If I would change my setup to Program Files/HouseBot instead of Program FIles/Meedio/Meedio HouseBot and use the HouseBot blue etc image directories, I would probably see nothing at all in my theme because the old xml still points to my old Meedio HouseBot directory. In stead of using the theme editor to reselect all images and buttons, I would just edit my xml theme file and use a replace command to change all at once. I guess that makes sense...

Richard,

That is what I did for mine. I just did a search/replace in my editor and then my the theme worked fine.

I guess eventually it is better to loose the Meedio path and go with the path HouseBot is supposed to be setup with. AFter installing version 2.30, I still got my Meedio Blue and Meedio Dark etc image directories, but now I also have HouseBot blue and HouseBot Dark. That makes sense of course, but I don't want to see duplicates in my directories evertime I install a new version. Therefore I will change in due time to HouseBot in stead of Meedio HouseBot